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Read about trends in HIV testing and CDC's ongoing commitment to expanding HIV testing efforts.

This Dear Colleague letter announces the publication of two new HIV surveillance reports and an AtlasPlus update. The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States led to disruptions in HIV testing services and access to clinical services throughout 2020. This disruption resulted in a steep, single-year decline in HIV diagnoses that is mostly attributed to declines in testing caused by less frequent visits to health centers, reduced outreach services, and shifting of public health staff to COVID-19 response activities. Given these disruptions, data for 2020 should be interpreted with caution.

The annual surveillance report summarizes information about diagnosed HIV infection in the United States and dependent areas. HIV surveillance data are used by CDC and their public health partners in other federal agencies, health departments, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, and the public to help focus prevention efforts; plan services; allocate resources; develop policy; detect, monitor, and intervene in HIV clusters; and monitor trends in HIV infection.

This report complements the HIV Surveillance Report and presents the results of focused analyses of National HIV Surveillance System (NHSS) data to measure progress toward achieving national HIV prevention and care goals. Data for persons aged ≥13 years with diagnosed HIV are presented for linkage to care, receipt of care, viral suppression, stage 3 (AIDS) classifications at HIV diagnosis, deaths, and survival. Also included are data on perinatally acquired HIV infection in the U.S. and preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) data (prescriptions, indications, and coverage) for persons aged ≥16 years.

Report includes the latest data on the core indicators for monitoring the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. initiative.